For the past 16 years, the Private Market Symposium has brought together BIP Ventures leaders, investors, founders, and advisor partners. This once-a-year gathering offers a rare opportunity for members of this community to hear from others who share their belief in the durable impact of innovation.
The 2025 Symposium was the most exciting yet. More than 500 members of the BIP Ventures community took advantage of in-person discussions and timely updates. Hosting the largest audience to date, the event underscored the firm's growth and the strength of an ecosystem that continues to create opportunities by connecting capital, innovation, and disciplined growth.
BIP Capital CEO Mark Buffington and GP & COO Mark Flickinger led the evening. Five of the firm's high-potential portfolio companies presented updates about their companies. Three themes permeated the Main Stage presentations:
Together, they highlighted one central point – the private markets are in a state of change, from the construct and function of investment strategies to the startups growing toward category leadership inside venture portfolios.
In 2025, AI officially became ubiquitous. While fewer investors are putting capital into pure-play AI infrastructure companies, none are investing in innovation companies that are failing to integrate AI into their business models and offerings.
“The AI revolution isn’t coming. It’s already here.” Mark Buffington
Buffington describe the formative technology shift in the context of history and how BIP Ventures is assessing and using AI. Historically, each new technological era has created its own boom and fueled the next generation of category leaders. In the same way that railroads, utilities, and the internet have shaped and reshaped economies, AI is now reconfiguring human productivity, accelerating efficiencies, and enabling new business models. He went on to explain why companies that will succeed in this new era are not focused solely on building AI infrastructure, but on applying it effectively. Savvy investors are focusing on companies using "applied AI" – machine learning constructed to solve specific, defensible problems within industries such as healthcare, logistics, and finance.
“AI will revolutionize the way startups are built, the capital efficiency of venture models, and how firms like ours support portfolio companies.” Mark Buffington
The conversation also acknowledged the practical hurdles ahead. Energy consumption, regulatory uncertainty, and the reliability of generative models will shape the pace of progress. These constraints, however, are unlikely to slow the adoption curve.
Flickinger provided a market update contextualized in how investors and founders are navigating the current economy. Among the highlights:
While these markers may seem somewhat dire, Flickinger made the case for why they signal opportunities for disciplined investors. Most notably – fewer competitors are chasing quality deals and valuations have normalized – both of which give investors better entry points and founders a chance to raise capital on rational terms.
“We’re seeing fewer deals and fewer investors, but still an abundance of great companies solving real problems. That’s a tremendous opportunity.” Mark Flickinger
The broader takeaway of the market snapshot is that investors are no longer rewarding growth for its own sake. Instead, GPs and LPs want to work with companies that demonstrate clear product-market fit, disciplined capital allocation, and measurable traction between rounds. In other words, sustainable value creation is the defining measure of success, as it was before the Pandemic.
One of the most significant shifts in 2025 has been the rise of private credit and evergreen vehicles as core components of private market portfolios. With IPO and M&A exits still limited, these structures provide investors with periodic liquidity and predictable yield, while giving operating companies an alternative to dilutive equity raises.
Flickinger described this evolution as an “arbitrage of opportunity” between traditional venture and credit markets. The convergence of credit and equity strategies allows allocators to participate across a broader risk-return spectrum. The message was clear: diversified private-market exposure, comprising venture equity, private credit, and evergreen structures, has the potential to provide more consistent access to innovation without relying solely on exit cycles.
Beyond markets and models, the Symposium’s most resonant theme was human potential. As AI automates analysis and operations, human insight remains irreplaceable. The winners of the next decade will integrate the strengths of both – humans for creativity, empathy, and strategy; machines for precision, scale, and speed.
This human-machine model has taken shape at BIP Ventures. Buffington shared how the firm's proprietary data platform integrates AI to accelerate research, surface insights, and streamline investor operations. By pairing automation with analyst oversight, the team can focus more on pattern recognition and less on process repetition.
Founders and investors should see AI as an enabler, not an automator. Competitive advantage comes from using technology to amplify the distinctly human capabilities of judgment, empathy, and design.
“We’re not just investing in technology. We’re redefining how technology invests in us.” Mark Buffington
The Symposium Main Stage session closed with a thank you from the team that reflected the firm's founding tenet – community is the ultimate differentiator.
The event was the largest in the firm's history, assembling more than 500 participants, including 50 portfolio company leaders. Everyone who attended contributed to the collective strength of the innovation ecosystem that BIP Ventures has built and expanded through and beyond the Southeast.
“This event is where we get out of the way and let our investors and portfolio companies connect with one another in a place where where innovation and capital meet.” Mark Flickinger
The 2025 Private Market Symposium underscored that innovation in private markets is no longer just about speed. It's about direction and durability. AI is reshaping what’s possible, but disciplined growth, ethical design, and collaborative execution will never stop separating successful companies from the others. BIP Ventures is taking that truism to heart, building multi-sector, multi-stage portfolios of startups that can harness technology to serve people, drive progress, and balance their ambition with fundamentals.
* This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security, product, or investment vehicle. Past performance is not indicative of future results. All statements reflect opinions as of the date of publication and are subject to change without notice.
